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Yes, I got rejected at a lot of firms that were below what I guess is typical of my grade / school range. I was genuinely interested in the firms (I applied for a reason) and tried to convey that in my interviews, but it didn't seem to work. I got a rejection from one firm the next day. I've had better success at "reach" firms than at "safety" firms, but part of that might be because the "safety" firms tend to have much, much smaller class sizes.

1. You must be living under a rock. ITE, there is no such thing as a "safety" firm.2. These people have interviewed and hired/rejected TONS of people over the past months and years. If you think that they cannot detect when someone is not genuinely interested in them, or when someone is interviewing with them as a "safety," then you are sadly mistaken. Well, maybe you aren't so mistaken anymore, now that they have set you straight.

Unsolicited advice: Don't be so impressed with yourself. It probably is not warranted, and it definitiely is not endearing.

1. You must be living under a rock. ITE, there is no such thing as a "safety" firm.2. These people have interviewed and hired/rejected TONS of people over the past months and years. If you think that they cannot detect when someone is not genuinely interested in them, or when someone is interviewing with them as a "safety," then you are sadly mistaken. Well, maybe you aren't so mistaken anymore, now that they have set you straight.

Unsolicited advice: Don't be so impressed with yourself. It probably is not warranted, and it definitiely is not endearing.

That is all.

I'm the OP, and I think you've got me all wrong.

I never once went into an interview thinking it was a "safety." Not once. Not in this job market. I never even heard the term until I started reading this board post-OCI, and now I'm curious about piecing together how the process works.

It's possible. I definitely sensed that some of my interviewers at less competitive firms made some unwarranted assumptions about me based on my grades/lr, and most of them were not in my favor. That said, it's quite possible that a lower CB-to-screening interview ratio is explained entirely by lower GPA cutoffs. Less competitive firms may simply not give a bonus to people with high grades, which means that such people have more competitors at such firms and can naturally expect to therefore have a worse shot at scoring a CB.

1. You must be living under a rock. ITE, there is no such thing as a "safety" firm.2. These people have interviewed and hired/rejected TONS of people over the past months and years. If you think that they cannot detect when someone is not genuinely interested in them, or when someone is interviewing with them as a "safety," then you are sadly mistaken. Well, maybe you aren't so mistaken anymore, now that they have set you straight.

Unsolicited advice: Don't be so impressed with yourself. It probably is not warranted, and it definitiely is not endearing.

That is all.

The problem is that a lot of people seem to start with the presumption that candidates with high grades are "impressed with themselves" and have their choice of firms, even ITE. If you have a high GPA, you have to work to overcome this presumption, which isn't something that people with lower GPAs have to do.

My school gave us grade history of firms hiring from our school, and I interviewed with several firms that my GPA was higher than anyone they've hired from my school in the last 10 years, and then I didn't get a callback. It could be that they didn't see a fit, or that because they're GPA cutoff is lower, they were looking for something more than grades. Either way, I was a bit surprised, especially because I ended up with an offer from a reach firm. So basically, this whole process makes no sense, especially ITE.

Poster #2 here: I guess safety isn't really the term to use because as our friend pointed out above, no firm is a "safety." My response assumed OP was referring to firms that typically hire students with lower grades than OP has or whatever. I don't mean "safety" in the same way as someone would call a school a safety, for example.

Sure firms yield protect. If you're not local it costs a lot to give you flyback and they don't want to waste that money. If you have high grades and LR at a T-14, you really have to convince some firms that you would pick them over a V20, because they're pretty sure you're going to get an offer from one of those firms.

Of course, you can overcome this by showing genuine interest, but it has to be very firm or geographic specific.

And yes, even in this economy there are safety firms. You just need much better credentials than you did in 2006.

1. You must be living under a rock. ITE, there is no such thing as a "safety" firm.2. These people have interviewed and hired/rejected TONS of people over the past months and years. If you think that they cannot detect when someone is not genuinely interested in them, or when someone is interviewing with them as a "safety," then you are sadly mistaken. Well, maybe you aren't so mistaken anymore, now that they have set you straight.

Unsolicited advice: Don't be so impressed with yourself. It probably is not warranted, and it definitiely is not endearing.

That is all.

I'm the OP, and I think you've got me all wrong.

I never once went into an interview thinking it was a "safety." Not once. Not in this job market. I never even heard the term until I started reading this board post-OCI, and now I'm curious about piecing together how the process works.

P.S. D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y

This is totally legit. You don't know/think that any firm is a safety until after you get a string of callbacks/offers from much more selective firms. Then you wonder - wtf did Hughes Hubbard ding me?

But seriously, firms definitely practice a mix of "fit analysis" and "yield protect," probably with a lot more emphasis on the former. And tbf, someone who has Wachtell/Sullivan/Cravath kind of numbers are probably a poor fit at less selective firms anyway. From the firm's perspective, it's not worth their time talking to candidates who aren't likely to end up accepting the offer.

1. You must be living under a rock. ITE, there is no such thing as a "safety" firm.2. These people have interviewed and hired/rejected TONS of people over the past months and years. If you think that they cannot detect when someone is not genuinely interested in them, or when someone is interviewing with them as a "safety," then you are sadly mistaken. Well, maybe you aren't so mistaken anymore, now that they have set you straight.

Unsolicited advice: Don't be so impressed with yourself. It probably is not warranted, and it definitiely is not endearing.

That is all.

I'm the OP, and I think you've got me all wrong.

I never once went into an interview thinking it was a "safety." Not once. Not in this job market. I never even heard the term until I started reading this board post-OCI, and now I'm curious about piecing together how the process works.

P.S. D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y

This is totally legit. You don't know/think that any firm is a safety until after you get a string of callbacks/offers from much more selective firms. Then you wonder - wtf did Hughes Hubbard ding me?

But seriously, firms definitely practice a mix of "fit analysis" and "yield protect," probably with a lot more emphasis on the former. And tbf, someone who has Wachtell/Sullivan/Cravath kind of numbers are probably a poor fit at less selective firms anyway. From the firm's perspective, it's not worth their time talking to candidates who aren't likely to end up accepting the offer.

This seems credited based on my experience with OCI. I thought it odd that I rejected for screening interviews at small or mid size law firms that I now feel confident calling safties, while I was getting call-backs (and subsequent offers) at much more prestigious firms. It's like the small firms have not figured out that they should probably take this opportunity to pick up some talent that would normally be out of reach in a better market. Or maybe they are looking for someone who will stay for more than a few years. The best explanation is yield protect. I also suppose that if I were a smaller firm I'd rather have the median student who is grateful to be there than the 25% guy who thinks he should be somewhere else

As a side note, one of my fears going into OCI, especially after many of the smaller firms didn't give me a screener, was that my numbers would end up too low for Vault firms, too high for small firms and I would get froze out. I'm curious if this happened to anyone.

If you're doing a screening interview with a firm that's clearly below the Vault range that your credentials will likely get you, you have to make an especially convincing case that you want to work there. A V75-100 firm cannot simply use all of its limited callbacks on law review grade-ons who will likely get V25 offers. If you're a law review grade-on and interviewing at Covington and Patton Boggs, Covington knows that there's a good chance you'd accept an offer, whereas Patton Boggs assumes that you will choose a firm like Covington. Overcoming this barrier isn't very difficult; you just need to find something special about the firm - something that isn't true about many other firms in the area - that attracts you to it. A very particular practice area, ties to an industry you're interested in, a partner you've interacted with before, or even recommendations from students who worked there during a previous summer might suffice.

For example, if you're a law review grade-on and interviewing at Wiley Rein, express a strong interest in telecommunications. You've now made a convincing case that you would accept an offer there.

Anonymous User wrote:It's possible. I definitely sensed that some of my interviewers at less competitive firms made some unwarranted assumptions about me based on my grades/lr, and most of them were not in my favor. That said, it's quite possible that a lower CB-to-screening interview ratio is explained entirely by lower GPA cutoffs. Less competitive firms may simply not give a bonus to people with high grades, which means that such people have more competitors at such firms and can naturally expect to therefore have a worse shot at scoring a CB.

This.

Firms that have a cut-off at top 50% aren't going to give your top 25% ass a huge bump because you got decent grades. You're in a big pool of potential callbacks and have to sell yourself just as much as everyone else.

There are no safeties in the OCI process, because there is no numbers "formula." This isn't like law school, where a certain GPA/LSAT will get you accepted at most (if not all) schools below a certain rank. I was dinged by both low V-100 and V-10, and accepted by both low V-100 and V-10. Barring a few firms with GPA cutoffs, there's really no formula.

What makes this really difficult is that we don't know what firms' policies are. I wonder if perhaps part of my problem was bidding on too many "less selective" firms. The thing is, while career services hands out those averages over 10 years, I have no idea what that might mean ITE. E.g., if I have a 3.5, do I apply to firms that traditionally took 3.5s? If they're grade-focused, one would think that they would now be only considering 3.7s and 3.8s. Do I apply for 3.3s? 3.4s?

The thing is, I'm pretty sure that there isn't any one answer to this question, because every firm can hire however it wants. (Even every office.) I do wish that firms would at least reveal their cutoffs, if they have them established. Career services told me to try dropping down about .2; I wish they would have shared some insights about which firms hire in which ways.

Anonymous User wrote:There are no safeties in the OCI process, because there is no numbers "formula." This isn't like law school, where a certain GPA/LSAT will get you accepted at most (if not all) schools below a certain rank. I was dinged by both low V-100 and V-10, and accepted by both low V-100 and V-10. Barring a few firms with GPA cutoffs, there's really no formula.

I am very skeptical of the idea that the Vault list is in any way comparable to USNWR or the like. "T14" and "V40" strike me as fundamentally dissimilar terms.

What we really need is some sort of site like LawSchoolNumbers.com, with separate pages for each school-firm combination, showing who got callbacks/offers. That might at least allow people to identify the firms that clearly have some sort of cutoff or grade preference.

Anonymous User wrote:What we really need is some sort of site like LawSchoolNumbers.com, with separate pages for each school-firm combination, showing who got callbacks/offers. That might at least allow people to identify the firms that clearly have some sort of cutoff or grade preference.

i don't know how much you'd get out of this. the face to face interview factor in jobs and not in apps is a huge difference.

I got an offer from the most prestigious firm I applied to in the city I concentrated on. I did not get any offers from any other firms and only three other callbacks. I definitely misunderstood how the system worked. Worked out great for me, so no complaints, but I someone should tell the kids for next year.